1	The Internet: Helping Create “New English” or Reinforcing Old Dominance? Deborah Healey, Ph.D. Oregon State University deborah.healey@oregonstate.edu http://oregonstate.edu/~healeyd/
2	Consider… What happens, linguistically, when the members of the human race use a technology enabling any of them to be in routine contact with anyone else? (Crystal, 2001: 5)
3	Topics Language – language change Power – critical pedagogy, 3 circles Internet – dominance Netspeak - language change
4	Language and change Generational, interaction-related New technology => new vocabulary No ‘standard’ for English Large number of 1^st and 2^nd language speakers 1,125,000,000 (1.125 billion people, 2006 estimate)
5	Critical pedagogy Learning that is personally and socially relevant Teaching and learning that empowers learners Awareness of hierarchies and power structures Freire (1970), Giroux (1996, 1997), Pennycook (2001)
6	Three Circles – Kachru (1985)
7	Three Circles – Kachru (1985) Inner Circle Outer Circle Expanding Circle Others can be “functionally native speakers” (Melchers & Shaw, 2003) Many varieties within each circle Mystique of the “genetically native speaker”
8	Internet dominance: English
9	Netspeak New registers of English (Crystal, 2001; Herring, 1996; Baron, 2000; Lee, 2002) Intersection of writing and speech Informal, playful, creative Few if any standards
10	Synchronous communication Chatspeak Technology-imposed limitations Need to type fast “Lag” Responses overlap
11	David Crystal, 2001 “The fact that messages are typically short, rapidly distributed (lag permitting), and coming from a variety of sources (any number of people may be online at once) results in the most distinctive characteristic of chatgroup language: its participant overlap” (2001, 157).
12	Chatspeak Abbreviations (BTW, TTFN) Emoticons Orthography based on sound (a loooong time; hehehehe) Cyberculture Irreverent, playful, anti-establishment Often multilingual, especially outside monolingual countries
13	Who uses chatspeak? Dave’s ESL Cafe forums Students Teachers More public; people don’t know each other Teacher lists – Yahoo Groups Teachers know each other
14	Globalization and resistance Extensive exposure to US English in particular online and in mass media L2 speakers of English communicating with each other rather than with L1 speakers of English
15	Kachru, 1997 “The initiatives in planning, administration, acquisition, and spread of English in Asia are primarily in the hands of Asians” (1997: 69)
16	Oral interaction online L2 or multilingual Audio chat Audio blogs Instant messaging Skype and other voice tools Call centers – exposing Americans/Inner Circle to other varieties
17	Times are interesting… English teachers have a special role Keep information flowing in multiple directions Help create a new, globally-aware definition of who and what an English speaker is
18	Consider... The power to define how you speak is the power to define who you are